Golf Magazine Ends Its 30-Year Run

OG (Ontario Golf) was an official publication of the Golf Association of Ontario and it’s been announced that its fall edition will be its last in a history that saw the publication begin as a newsprint publication entitled Ontario Golf News.

It became a glossy magazine in 2000. Over the years, Ontario Golf News and OG have been owned by a variety of publishers, including Osprey Media at the end.

According to GAO executive director Dave Mills, the association paid for half of distribution to its members and had input into magazine content. He says he wasn’t overly surprised by the decision considering the recent state of golf publishing.

“I think the awareness was out there, not specific to OG, but to the reality that there are a lot of golf magazines that, to some degree, are all competing for the same advertising dollars,” he said

“They seemed to be getting thinner as time went on, or perhaps changing formats. We weren’t aware that OG was at a point of not being financially sustainable in terms of advertising sales,” said Mills, adding that the GAO had a good relationship with OG.

“The agreement was always lived up to — there were no issues there,” he said.

“In an ideal world, you always want to have the focus on what the association’s all about, but we recognize that, in the sort of agreement we had with OG and their need to be financially sustainable, reaching a broader audience than our membership, that all of their stories weren’t going to be about the golf association,” said Mills.

Mills said he will likely know more in a couple of weeks about any future communications vehicle that will be used by the association.

“It turns out next week we have a two-day retreat with our board on strategic planning for the future. This will be one of the things we talk about. I guess, in theory, everything’s on the table,” he said.

“Based on what comes out of that, it could range from do nothing, right up to we try to find another partner like we had with OG. If we think that there’s some possibility with the latter approach, we would probably go with a public process to see who’s interested,” said Mills.

About Ian Hutchinson

'Hutch' is a veteran Canadian golf writer, whose history in the game includes an extensive background with Canadian golf trade publications. Hutch is also a regular contributor to publications and websites in Canada and the United States.

Comments

Too bad, I’ve enjoyed that publication since I was a junior golfer. I will miss it. The GAO should focus there attention on online presence which costs less and potentially reaches more viewers this day in age. Will be interesting to see where they go with it.

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